Interracial sex mattered to the British colonial state in West Africa. In Crossing the Color Line, Carina E. Ray goes beyond this fact to reveal how Gold Coasterstheir social practices, interests, and
Mau Mau Crucible of War is a study of the social and cultural history of the mentalite of struggle in Kenya, which reached a peak during the Mau Mau War of the 1950s. This struggle continues to resona
‘If you want to understand Nigeria’s history in one succinct go, this is a very good choice.’Noo Saro-WiwaKnown as the African Giant, Nigeria's story is complex and often contradictory. How, despite t
Big game hunting was an iconic activity in British colonial Africa that has long been associated with the celebration of rugged, white manhood and imperial dominance over African people and landscapes
Literature remains one of the few disciplines that reflect the experiences, sensibility, worldview, and living realities of its people. Contemporary African literature captures the African experience
The emergence of a 'new' democratic South Africa under Nelson Mandela was regarded as a high watermark for international ideals of human rights and democracy. Much was expected of the ANC in power, pa
In "Encountering Empire", Elisabeth Engel traces how black American missionaries - men and women grappling with their African heritage - established connections in Africa during the
Based on a decade of fieldwork in southeastern Ghana and analysis of secondary sources, this book aims to reconstruct the religious history of the Anlo-Ewe peoples from the 1850s. In particular, it focuses on a corpus of rituals collectively known as 'Fofie', which derived their legitimacy from engaging with the memory of the slave-holding past. The Anlo developed a sense of discomfort about their agency in slavery in the early twentieth century which they articulated through practices such as ancestor veneration, spirit possession, and by forging links with descendants of peoples they formerly enslaved. Conversion to Christianity, engagement with 'modernity', trans-Atlantic conversations with diasporan Africans, and citizenship of the postcolonial state coupled with structural changes within the religious system - which resulted in the decline in Fofie's popularity - gradually altered the moral emphases of legacies of slavery in the Anlo historical imagination as the twentieth century
This book examines key emergent trends related to aspects of power, sovereignty, conflict, peace, development, and changing social dynamics in the African context. It challenges conventional IR precep
In Angola's Colossal Lie. Forced Labor on a Sugar Plantation, 1913-1977Jeremy Ball explains how forced labor produced enormous profits at one of colonial Angola’s largest agro-industrial enterprises.
Poverty is South Africa's greatest challenge. But what is 'poverty'? How can it be measured? And how can it be reduced if not eliminated? In South Africa, human science knowledge about the cost of living grew out of colonialism, industrialization, apartheid and civil resistance campaigns, which makes this knowledge far from neutral or apolitical. South Africans have used the Poverty Datum Line (PDL), Gini coefficients and other poverty thresholds to petition the state, to chip away at the pillars of white supremacy, and, more recently, to criticize the postapartheid government's failures to deliver on some of its promises. Rather than promoting one particular policy solution, this book argues that poverty knowledge teaches us about the dynamics of historical change, the power of racism in white settler societies, and the role of grassroots protest movements in shaping state policies and scientific categories. Readers will gain new perspectives on today's debates about social welfare, r
President Robert Gabriel Mugabe of Zimbabwe is an enigmatic figure who has been in power for over three decades. He is a difficult subject to understand because his political life has attracted both a
This history of African motherhood over the longue durée demonstrates that it was, ideologically and practically, central to social, economic, cultural and political life. The book explores how people in the North Nyanzan societies of Uganda used an ideology of motherhood to shape their communities. More than biology, motherhood created essential social and political connections that cut across patrilineal and cultural-linguistic divides. The importance of motherhood as an ideology and a social institution meant that in chiefdoms and kingdoms queen mothers were powerful officials who legitimated the power of kings. This was the case in Buganda, the many kingdoms of Busoga, and the polities of Bugwere. By taking a long-term perspective from c.700 to 1900 CE and using an interdisciplinary approach - drawing on historical linguistics, comparative ethnography, and oral traditions and literature, as well as archival sources - this book shows the durability, mutability and complexity of ideo
Presents general information about the continent of Africa, looking at its countries, cities, landforms, climate, natural resources, people, cultures, and economics.
